For incoming freshmen, the freedom and responsibility of life on a college campus is a big change from high school, endowing students with a new level of maturity.
For the 151 students enrolled in the Perspectives advising program, this may be most evident in their course syllabi. After all, in high school, most students probably weren't allowed to even mention graphic films like "Pulp Fiction" or "Mulholland Drive" in class. Now, these films aren't only allowed - they're required.
The 16-year-old Perspectives program was originally devised as an alternative to its older sister, the Explorations program. Both are Ex-College-run advising programs that allow pairs of students to teach and advise a group of incoming freshmen.
However, requirements to teach the Explorations program are extremely rigorous, so Perspectives was created "to make it easier for people to become a leader" said Perspectives director Howard Woolf.
Unlike Explorations, which allows students to instruct their younger classmates on any topic, Perspectives courses are based in film.
"We require [students] to come up with a theme and how they would like to use it, and what they think their students will get out of it, and then over the summer we give them a lot of material to build the series of lesson plans that they'll use," Woolf said.
The program's different themes are united by the idea that "you need to look at movies as both an art form and an industry," Woolf said. "We're still holding onto the idea that we need to teach entering students how to look at movies as movies."
Students spend the first half of the course learning about the more technical aspects of film. "[Movie reviewers] treat movies like they were books, or plays... They never mention things like how the camera was used, or how it was edited, if they did interesting things with light and sound and so on, and that's what we emphasize," Woolf said.
The upperclassmen teaching Perspectives get a crash course in these film techniques over the summer and during pre-orientation.
"Over the summer, there was a lot of preparation," said junior Lauren Vigdor, who is teaching a class called Films About Sex, Drugs, and Rock n' Roll. Vigdor and the other student leaders were required to complete multiple course readings and watch several movies to learn about film.
At the same time, the leaders were also finalizing their teaching plans and creating syllabi for their students. "I had to rent a lot of movies that I thought might fit the category to figure out which ones we wanted to show for our class," said junior Sarah Jacknis, who is teaching a class on non-linear films
This year's Perspectives leaders started official training on August 23, engaging in all-day seminars taught by Woolf and Perspectives Assistant Director Cindy Stewart exploring "a lot of visual literacy training and practicing teaching," Vigdor said.
"We look at movies and have to sort of think on our feet as far as teaching from them or being taught by them is concerned."
Teaching Perspectives will involve more than just watching movies. The freshmen will have to write at least 25 pages for the class and will be graded on a pass-fail basis by their upperclassmen leaders.
And if their students don't do well? "[Failing a student] would be hard," Vigdor said. "No one likes to fail, and no one likes to be the person that makes someone fail... Hopefully, we won't have to."
Junior Dave Kaminsky, Vigdor's co-teacher for the class, isn't too worried about the prospect of failing students: "I mean, this is a class called Films About Sex, Drugs, and Rock n' Roll," he said. "I don't think the grades are going to be that important."
Grading isn't the only nerve-wracking aspect of teaching a course. "I'm nervous that the kids won't participate and [that] Sarah and I will be left to sort of fill up a class with us talking," said junior Katie Ray, who will be teaching the non-linear films course with
Jacknis.
Still, Ray isn't too worried: "We're going to be talking with kids who are interested in this as much as we are, so I'm hoping that means [that] they have similar desires to explore these kinds of movies," she said.
And teaching isn't the Perspective leaders' only job. Perspective teachers are also unofficial student advisors, helping their pupils in everything from coordinating classes to navigating the new college scene.
"It's a safety net," Woolf said when explaining the program. Perspectives is "based on the idea [of] getting to know a couple of older students who feel responsible for you and getting to become part of a small group of friends...who have a common interest with you."
Woolf went on to explain that Perspectives and Explorations are proven ways to ensure student acclimatization.
"Over the years, we have seen statistically that, of people in Explorations and Perspectives, far fewer of them have academic problems, far fewer of them leave school or feel lost and want to transfer," he said.
Vigdor is looking forward to the chance to help out incoming freshen. "I like helping out people in unfamiliar situations; I like taking people under my wing," she said.
Ray is also looking forward to the chance to guide new students. "It's nice to be a peer leader for kids, because I remember what it's like to be a freshman," she said.
Still, the advising aspect of the program can be trickier than just plain teaching, explained Kaminsky.
"I'm a lot less nervous about the actual teaching of the class than I am about the fact that I'm supposed to be their peer advisor," Kaminsky said. "I'd say my biggest fear is that I'm going to see some kids doing something that they shouldn't be doing that I just did a week ago."
Even if such a situation would occur, Kaminksy is still looking forward to being a part of Perspectives.
"I always wished I had taken Perspectives," he said. "I hated my advising course...and I'd talked to people who did Perspectives, and they all loved it."
In fact, they loved it so much that about half of the current Perspectives leaders this year are former Perspectives students. Besides Vigdor, both Jacknis and Ray are also Perspectives alums, an experience which influenced their decisions to be part of the Perspectives program again.
"I knew about the program and that it was a fun experience," Jacknis said.
Jacknis is also considering her future: "I think I might want to be a teacher, so it seemed like a good opportunity to see if that's something I like to do."
Even those without aspirations of teaching can see the benefits of teaching a Perspectives course: "I think it would be a good experience to learn how to lead a big group, whether or not it's in a classroom environment," Kaminsky said.
Woolf agreed: "For me, the benefit to the teachers is really the secret heart" of the Perspectives program, Woolf said.
"Teaching as an undergraduate, I think, is an amazing opportunity... Leaders learn how to become communicators, how to organize, group dynamics, how to handle people in stress and pressure situations."
"It's a great growth experience," Woolf said.
